Position: 39:05:45N 28:10:85W

We are off!  We left at 0900 local time this morning and I am writing this on my first night watch at 2100 ships time, 2300 UTC.  Wind is Westerly 3-4, the seas have eased and it is quite pleasant!

We had a bit of a big night last night.  Various yachts arrived during the day whom we hadn’t seen since the Caribbean, notably Wanderer IV and Blue Tarn, the Nicholson 35.  So we all went up to Peter’s Bar and had some beers.  It is an excellent place, a real sailors pub, and the friendliness is legendary – mainly because everyone has sailed several thousand miles to get here!  Anko and his crew (including 10-yr-old Lars) were installed in the bar, Anko getting steadily drunker, and Lars pouring coke into his pints!  Three tired-looking French guys who had just come in from Guadeloupe joined us and the crew from Karen M, a Nautticat 42 who also left with us this morning.  It all ended up with rum back on Nutmeg – not the ideal way to prepare for an ocean passage!

I woke up feeling pretty rough and have actually felt queasy all day!  Serves me right.  Four other boats all left at the same time, heading for the English Channel.  We got the boat set up with full sail, jib poled out to leeward to hold it steady, and I had a sleep which made me feel a lot better.

The sea was initially fairly big and confused but it has eased throughout the day.  The wind has been kind so far – 12-14kts from the West, meaning we are broad-reaching on a course of 035M, heading north of the rhumb line to reach the stronger winds.  We’ve had some pilot whales blowing a couple of hundred metres away, and sadly we passed a dead turtle which had caught itself up in some old fishing gear.  It is now dark and there is some phosphorescence and a few faint lights on the horizon.

That’s all for now.